BAFFLED residents were evacuated from their homes when they thought an earthquake had hit their street.

But the strange rumblings and mystery smoke coming from underground turned out to be an electricity cable that had set on fire and was sending shock waves through the concrete.

The incident happened in Warkworth Street, Lemington, Newcastle, at 6.40pm on Thursday.

The electricity main was arcing and lifting the concrete up as residents watched on.

Occupants from two houses on either side of the fault were told to get out of their homes as fire fighters were amazed at what they faced.

Electricity company NEDL were called to the street. They had to dig a gaping hole as engineers worked to rectify the problem,

Pat Stevenson, 56, said: I was sitting watching the news on TV when the lights started to flicker and the house started to shake.

I looked outside and saw smoke coming from the ground outside the house next door and the noise sounded like thunder.

The cement was lifting up, the ground was rumbling and there was smoke. You would have thought it was an earthquake. The houses near the fire were evacuated. I was in my dressing gown and I had to put on a coat, grab my dog, my purse and cigarettes and left the house to stand at the top of the street. We were outside for about an hour.

A fire crew from West Denton attended the scene.

Crew manager David Brown said: It was an exploding pavement. The electricity cable was arcing underground which was making the pavement lift. It was something to see.

Damage was confined to the street.

The fire follows a similar incident earlier this week which left 13,000 homes without power.

Firefighters from Tynemouth station were called to a pavement on fire near to Wallsend Metro station on Wednesday.

When they arrived they also found that an underground cable was alight and had caused five paving slabs to lift.

A spokeswoman for NEDL said: Our engineers arrived at the site in Warkworth Street within the hour. The fault affected 17 customers and we apologise to them but the power was back on by 2.10am the following morning.